News alert: LSU to appeal public records ruling

LSU is “disappointed” in a district court judge’s decision that the names of the candidates for the system’s presidency must be released, but “confident the decision will be reversed on appeal,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Hank Danos says in a prepared statement released this afternoon. Danos says the secretive presidential search was conducted in accordance with a 2006 law that requires public disclosure when a candidate becomes an “applicant.” LSU argues that F. King Alexander, whom the search committee selected as the lone finalist, was the only actual applicant for the job. Danos further claims the records Judge Janice Clark ordered LSU to produce are “not in LSU’s custody or control.” The LSU Foundation hired a private consultant, R. William Funk & Associates, to assist in the search. Media outlets that sued for access to the names contend just because the records were handled by a private firm, that doesn’t make them any less public, noting Alexander will head a public university.